Monday, January 13, 2025

Tag: Merelbeke

Team Wiggins Pro Dan Patten

Coming Close in Merelbeke

Best part of 200 riders, good crowds, the music playing, the beer flowing and the kermesse burgers cooking... all the elements of a typical kermesse here in Merelbeke, Belgium. I made the point of being on the front from the start here, knowing like usual it would explode from the off and not wanting to be caught too far back when it did. Not long into the frist lap and I found myself in the first move off the front but this was to be pulled back only a few kms later. After a few laps in the bunch I thought it was time to try again...
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Stories

When Scotland had a National Stage Race: Part 2 – The Pro-Am Years

In Part 1 of "When Scotland had a National Stage Race" we saw the domination of the East Europeans that ended with the introduction of Professionals in to the Scottish Milk Race. The first year it was the British based pro's, then the big boys in the shape of the Belgian Isjberk-Gios team arrived in 1978 and set fire to the race, so instead of an East European domination we now had a Continental Pro domination, but they had something the Czechoslovakians, Poles, East Germans or Russians didn't have: style; class; and that "Pro-appeal".
Interviews

Jörg Jaksche – “If you get caught, keep schtum”; Interview Part I

Jörg Jaksche is an interesting man to talk to; a top rider in his day - until he was one of the relatively few actually punished as a result of being implicated in Operatión Puerto. But unlike most, Jaksche didn’t, ‘deny, deny, deny.’ He did the ‘right thing’ and ‘fessed up’ – but the UCI twisted his words and to the teams he was a pariah.
Diaries

Berlin Six Day 2013 – Day Four

First up on Sunday at the Berlin Six Day was the team picture, like one of those shots of the ‘class of 1955’ or whenever that they take at expensive schools. The only photos the guys I went to primary school with had taken were on an individual ba